Ivy Tripp is DIY singer/songwriter that draws on Katie Crutchfield’s punk past. Lyrically, the album continues her exploration of feminist ideas, and uses her experiences, or more specifically her mistakes, to demonstrate how a strong, independent woman is formed in today’s society.

Drake has jumped on the release an album by surprise bandwagon with If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. Unlike Beyoncé’s and D’Angelo’s big, blown out surprise albums, however, IYRTITL is really more of a mixtape than a studio album and finds Drake at his most stripped down and emo. Most of the album is just Drake rapping over spare beats (primarily from Boi-1da, but Noah “40” Shebib is obviously here, too), with only the occasional feature from the likes of Lil Wayne, Travi$ Scott, and PARTYNEXTDOOR. Essentially, IYRTITL is an album chock full of the most divisive aspects of Drake’s music, so if you’re already a fan you’ll love it, but if you aren’t it’s best to skip this one.

There could be no other album to kick off NMT this week. Sleater-Kinney is an all time rock band and even though the band members have had other great projects (The Corin Tucker Band and Wild Flag chief among them), there has been a hole in the music world since the band broke up in 2006. Thankfully, they’re back together and No Cities to Love is right there with Dig Me Out and The Woods among their best. The guitars are as precisely jagged as ever, Janet Weiss still doesn’t miss a beat on the drums, and the vocals (Corin Tucker handles most of the primary ones here) are on point for society in 2015. No Cities to Love is punk rock at its absolute best. Give it a listen and then get your popcorn, Sleater-Kinney is going to be omnipresent for the foreseeable future.

I listened to a lot of music this year. According to last.fm I’ve listened to around 30,000 tracks, or an average of about 84 a day, in 2014. A whole lot of those listens weren’t close listens and a lot of them were songs released prior to 2014, but a good number of them were released in the past year. So while I certainly haven’t heard everything released this year, I’ve heard quite a bit of it and the below list is what I believe is the best. Unlike most of the writers here at MiG I don’t focus my listening on one or two genres (unless you want to define my listening habits as “blog pop,” which is kind of accurate), so there should be something for most people here. The blurbs about each album only scratch the surface of them, but I’m hopeful they will lead the reader to explore a couple of them more fully and that you find something you enjoy. Happy holidays, and here’s to an even better 2015 (Sleater-Kinney is back, so that’s a good start).

Trash Kit is a post punk trio out of England. Being a female band leads to lots of comparisons to The Slits and Raincoats and Trash Kit certainly has the hooks those bands did, but Confidence reminds me (and this is splitting hairs a bit) more of New York No Wave acts. It’s not quite as shambling as a Lizzy Mercier Descloux or James Chance, but there is still a sense the music could fall apart at any moment. The songs all hang together, though, (primarily due to their throbbing tribal beats) and they present a thoroughly enjoyable whole that explores some truly wonderful melodies and sounds.

British post punk band Savages and Japanese psych rock band Bo Ningen came together for the collaborative album Words to the Blind. Both bands have an experimental bent to their individual work and Words to the Blind seems to have increased those individual tendencies exponentially. The single track album starts with about four and a half minutes of Savages’ frontwoman Jehnny Beth speaking in French and Bo Ningen’s Taigen Kawabe speaking in Japanese with only the occasional instrumental note. It’s unclear if the two are in conversation or even if the words are related. Thereafter, harsh drones and baselines kick in for about five minutes followed by two minutes of eeriness.

MiG jumps into the year end ‘Best of’ lists, with Craig McManus leading off with his Top 20 albums of the year:

In the past, I’ve always written a blurb about each album explaining it’s inclusion on my list. Over the years of checking other people’s lists, however, I’ve noticed that I rarely read similar blurbs. Instead I scroll through to see what made it, what I agree with, what I disagree with, and with what I am unfamiliar. Then I move on to the next list. As I highly doubt I’m alone in this technique, I’m going to dispense with the paragraph of explanation and instead simply note the word or phrase by which it is best encapsulated. Think of it as a ‘Best of’ word association. It’ll save me time, and perhaps someone will actually read it rather than skimming to the next image.

Every year the Twin Cities benefits from Pitchfork Music Festival being in Chicago when several of the bands add a stop on their way to or from Chicago. This year that meant the first local date for the ferocious post punk buzz band of the moment Savages.

The show was at the 400 person capacity Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, and sold out so quickly (despite shows at the Triple Rock selling out rarely enough that a sign on the door announced “Tonight’s show is completely sold out. Seriously.”) that a return date has already been added at the 1,500 capacity First Avenue Mainroom in September. If you read nothing else of this review, read this: See them now before the rooms get even bigger.